1 Answer

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

1.

All space heating solutions start with the heat load calculations. Almost all gas "fireplaces" would be more than 3x oversized for a "small heating load", but without the actual heat load number it's hard to say.

Masonry chimneys are a bit of a pain to air seal, and even when tight represent a fairly big hole in the insulation.

Small direct vented gas-fired high-thermal mass wood-stove- based units are probably going to be more appropriate. The direct-vented Hearthstone Tribute throttles down to as low as 10,500 BTU/hr out (and up to 18,000 BTU/hr), which should work for a lot of small-load situations.

The bigger Sterling can drop to 12,000BTU/hr (and is lower efficiency at low fire), but can crank out a whopping 38,000BTU/hr at high fire (which is NOT a small load- it's enough to heat a typical 2400' code min house in New England.).